Life, 1923-12-13 · page 33 of 36
Life — December 13, 1923 — page 33: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This article satirizes early 20th-century America's obsession with specialization and bureaucratic organization. The author (B.F.) mocks the trend of fragmenting professions into ever-narrower specialties. The satire targets absurdities already visible: advertising agencies will need people to advertise *advertising itself*; golf professionals will split into subspecialists like "Hook and Slice Expert" and "Looking-up Specialist"; Grand Central Station's single information bureau will spawn dozens of specialized booths for "Ticket Questions," "Foolish Questions," etc. The humor lies in extrapolating real organizational trends to ridiculous extremes—suggesting that modern society's drive toward efficiency and expertise is producing increasingly pointless fragmentation. The office-boy anecdote about the LIFE Calendar reinforces this: despite corporate rules against calendars, one determined employee navigates the bureaucracy by appealing to different departments' interests—itself an example of unnecessary specialization. The piece is mostly **advertising and filler** rather than a traditional political cartoon.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Our Future Specialists We are gradually getting this living proposition down to a pretty fine point; we are getting organized. jhave not yet completed our cata- loguing and pigeonholing, but we have gone far enough to see a few of the inevitabilities of the future. Take the advertising businesses, for instar they are about the only con- cerns in America whose names are not by e the public.” We shall have to have people who advertise the ad- vertising businesses. e situation of professional golfers ther random example. They now find themselves overrun with ambitious dubbers, and the only way out of the difficulty will be to specialize. We shall have such men as Duncan M’Cut, Hook and Slice Expert,” and Angus MacDivot, “Looking-up Specialist.” The leading professionals will then merely examine you and send you to the proper doctor. And the present idea of having only one information bureau in a place like the Grand Central Station is on the face of it absurd. There will have to be information booths for special kinds of questions; one will be labeled, “Ticket. Questions”; another, “Train Questions”; others, “Track Questions,” “Foolish Questions,” and so forth. The central bureau will then merely give you the information where you may find the answer to your question. There are countless other examples of what I mean; you may figure them i out for yourself. We have ihade some Books Received Croatan, by Mary Johnston (Little, Brown). Progress in getting organized, but not The Beloved Pawn, by Harold Titus (Dou- until this future time shall we be able bleday, Page). 7 z ; Myself east, by “X"” (Holt). to say with any truthfulness that we , Luther Nichols, by’ Mary S. Watts (Mac- ae “re iness.”” millan). ae “ready for business. H Uncanny Stories, by May Sinclair (Mac- B.F. millan). Fantastica, by Robert Nichols (Macmillan). Memories ‘of the Russian Court, by Anna Vi- roubova (Macmillan). Visions and Interpretations, by Bruce Moore (Putnam). The Epic of Golf, by Clinton Scollard, (Houghton Mifflin.) e Wandering in Northern China, by Harry A. E i CALENDAR Peeiean The Russian Soviet Republic, 1918-1922, by Edward Alsworth Ross (Century) Freedom. and the College, by Aiexander iklejohn (Century). Mei HE “powers that be” ruled that there should be no more LIFE Calendars. The Out Trai, by Mary Roberts Rinehart But the office boy decided that he needed some for Christmas presents. Jane Dorr, by Isabel Hawley Scott, (Revell). . rmorics of an Active Life, by Charles R. He went after the subscription department with the argument that a large eee Bie R. Hull (Macmillan). number of subscribers depended on them for the same purpose. L Tales for Boys and Girls, by Rudyard Ki ling (Doubleday, Page) He began whispering around the advertising department—he dropped a few Head Wis eae ys A MS Sinelaie, "Wale: (Dat: honeyed words of flattery to the art department—he persuaded the accounting SS department to pass the bills and— Well, we have another LIFE Calendar—6 splendid colored Pi rincess Hotel plates, beautifully printed on fine card stock—for $1.00. BERMUDA OPENS DECEMBER 7TH For reservations apply to . . L. A. TWOROGER CO. This Calendar will be sold only by Cable Address, Princess Bermuda LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY Tonia NER cm GRAIN 598 eee enn ] G AR: S “MADE AT KEY WEST.— comicbooks.com